Citizen Curators - Core Three. 02.12.2019

Citizen Curators - Core Three

02.12.2019 - Communciation and Exhibitions

@ Penlee House Gallery and Museum

Today we met at Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance for our third core session of the programme – it's hard to believe that this marks the halfway point as it has all flown by so quickly. 

Penlee House: the venue for today's session

The morning session was concerned with considering the role of a curator as communicator. Tehmina reminded us of the 50/50 model where a curator is half creator and half communicator, meaning equal attention should be paid to researching and sharing our stories. 

Working, as I have, in the communications sector across a number of industries for the past 20 years, I do feel that many Museums have a long way to go in the way they communicate information about what they are doing. This is particularly an issue for smaller museums where resource often seems to stop at marketing. 

Some of my background is in cultural promotions and in 2008 I was responsible for the promotion of the V&A’s The Story of the Supremes Exhibition on tour at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool. The campaign had a very small advertising budget but clever marketing including a recording on the Council telephone lines hold music saw record numbers attend with a queue round the door on the opening day. 

Image used to advertise the V&A's Story of the Supremes exhibition

This was before social media but even more so now clever campaigns and communications, coupled with smart spending can go a long way. I will look for opportunities to lend any of my inherent skills in this area during my time as a Citizen Curator.

Katie and Anna from Penlee House

In the afternoon we listened to Katie Herbert and Anna Renton from Penlee House talking about why museums have exhibitions and began the discussion by thinking about a museum exhibition we had seen that we’d been really impressed by. I struggled with this and, upon reflection, realised I perhaps prefer to be allowed to explore objects and a museum in my own way rather than experience a heavily curated collection. I don’t tend to gravitate towards special or touring exhibitions within Museums and my recent visit to Blake at Tate was a notable exception to this.  This session caused me to evaluate what I value about Museums and consider that perhaps special exhibitions do not call to everyone. 

We then had an opportunity to look at the exhibitions created by our fellow Citizen curators based at Penlee House. The amount of work and care that had gone into creating these was at the same time impressive, exciting and daunting (in thinking we are still to do our own!)